


The Fall

by darkpriestess



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-18 22:59:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4723472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkpriestess/pseuds/darkpriestess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This wasn't how Will had planned it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [下坠](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4736579) by [AprilSummer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AprilSummer/pseuds/AprilSummer)



Will remembers hitting the water like flying into solid rock, the water so cold he thinks his heart has stopped. He’s choking and spluttering, lungs on fire and his leg screaming at him. _Broken_ , he thinks and Hannibal's arms are around him, holding him steady, dragging him to safety.

 

_This isn’t how this was supposed to go. We were supposed to die._

 

For all that, Will’s body stubbornly refuses to let go of life, gulping huge lungfuls of air and swimming as best it can with one useless shoulder and a shattered leg. Hannibal is talking to him, telling to hang on, and Will wants to laugh, to reassure him. He should have known he wouldn’t have gotten out of this so easily, that fate, or the God Hannibal refuses to hide from wouldn’t let him die in such an adolescent, dramatic gesture.

 

_This is your becoming. Savour it. Savour it and be damned._

 

There’s a boat, and painkillers, and Hannibal stitching his wounds and making him tea. When Hannibal sets Will’s leg he’s sure they can hear the screams in Baltimore. Afterwards Hannibal strokes his hair and wipes away the tears from his face and Will shakes and clings to him like a child. Hannibal is irritatingly composed as always, and doesn’t seem to be the worse for wear from their fall-his bullet wound heals cleanly and he’s back to his old self within days.

 

Will's wounds do not heal cleanly. The cut on his face doesn’t bother him, except that it makes eating painful, but his much abused shoulder develops a nasty infection and Will’s nightmares take on the feverish quality he remembers from the encephalitis.  Blood soaked dreams envelop him, and he wanders through dark forests hunting stags that turn into Molly, and he finds his hands around Abigail’s throat, squeezing and squeezing. Will hears Hannibal's voice in the abyss and follows it like a thread, waking to antibiotics and chicken soup, before sinking back into the inky ocean, where Beverly Katz looks at him sadly and asks him what the hell he think’s he’s doing, Graham, running off with her murderer? Will tries to explain but his throat closes on the words and he grabs his knife and silences her instead. It’s beautiful.

 

“Will. Will, wake up” Hannibal is shaking him and Will thinks he must have been screaming. Its something special though, to see the unflappable Doctor Lecter looking so concerned and it makes Will smile.

 

“I’m ok. Sorry.”

 

“You don’t need to apologise. Unless it's for throwing us off a cliff, of course.”

 

Will feels the half hysterical laugh he’s been holding in escape. “I’m not sorry for that.”

 

“Of course you’re not. I wouldn’t expect it. You’ve always had a flair for the dramatic.”

 

“Pot, kettle.”

 

Hannibal wraps his arms around Will. “Go to sleep. I’m here.”

  


By the time Will’s shoulder has healed the boat has been left behind and they’re in a cabin somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Hannibal potters around, being domestic, while Will chops wood and tries not to think. Hannibal watches him carefully, for once unsure how to handle him, treating him like a fragile teacup. By day they circle each other warily, trading their usual barbs, but at night Will lies awake in Hannibal's embrace and thinks of the people he’s left behind. He imagines taking Jack slowly apart, piece by piece, of burying Alana alive in the burnt out ruins of the FBI. _They did this to me._ Will notices his growing anger with dispassionate interest, his thoughts jumping to Molly and then skittering away hastily. _Not her._

 

Will can’t think about his dogs at all, or he’ll start screaming and he won’t be able to stop.

 

When he kisses Hannibal the first time it's in an effort to distract himself, which is more or less successful. Gently at first and then more forceful till he can taste Hannibal’s blood in his mouth and his own pulse drowning out every other thought. They grind up against each other, Will staring into Hannibal’s eyes and wondering how much further he can fall, until Hannibal sinks his teeth into Will's wounded shoulder and the world explodes around him. Afterwards, they lie side by side in the dark, listening to each others breath, fingertips barely touching.

 

Will doesn’t dream at all that night.

 

In the morning, Hannibal makes a casual reference to Alana, and Will is on him, driving his fist into Hannibal’s face over and over. Hannibal makes no effort to stop him, just watches him curiously, absentmindedly licking the blood off his lip where Will has split it. _Curious to see what would happen._

 

Will takes off into the nearest town for the day, with its one grocery store and one cafe and thinks about calling Jack. His fingers ghost over the keys of his phone, the old Nokia Hannibal had given him (“better battery life Will, and untraceable”). He thinks about what he would say to Jack, what he would say to Molly and Walter. He thinks about his dogs and the welcome he would get from them, tails wagging and tongues lolling everywhere.

 

By nightfall Will is walking back into the cabin where Hannibal has set the table for two.

 

“I thought you might be halfway back to Jack by now” Hannibal says as he puts the roast on the table.

 

“I feel safer with you.”

 

Hannibal wraps his arms around Will.

 

“Stay with me.”

 

Will rests his head on Hannibal's chest. “Where else would I go?”

  
  



End file.
